Penélope Cruz Won't Suffer Fools

Penélope Cruz Won't Even Respond To People Who Ask About Her Age

Don't ask Penélope Cruz about her aging; she's not interested in talking about it. After all, aren't there cooler topics of conversation, like the fact that Cruz is a lauded actress with an Academy Award to her name?

"Journalists have been asking me, since I was, like, 22, 'Are you afraid of aging?'" Cruz told Gwyneth Paltrow in a piece for Interview Magazine. "That is such a crazy question for a 22-year-old girl or, for that matter, for a 42-year-old. I combat that craziness by refusing to answer the question."

Paltrow, who conducted the interview, added, "It’s amazing, Hollywood’s obsession with the aging of women. And how much scrutiny we get for being whatever age we are. "

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Cruz revealed that in her early career, she actively lied about her age. She reportedly attained an agent at 15 years old, and filmed her first movie (Jamón, Jamón, which debuted in 1992) when she was 17. But Cruz tells Paltrow that she doesn't really know how old she was when she filmed the movie — she was "lying so much" about her age at that point. She was only 15, so at this point, she was trying to seem older. ("I’ve spent most of my career trying to make myself older, for different reasons," she said.) Now that she's older — Cruz is 43 — everyone assumes that she must want to seem younger. But she's not interested in discussing that.

"When it comes to talking about aging as an actress, I feel like, 'What the fuck? I’m not going to give you even two minutes to honor your question. It doesn’t deserve that,'" she explained. "It’s 2017. Why do women still have to be talking about this? It’s crazy."

This is a new sentiment, she said, brought on by the birth of her daughter Luna Encinas Cruz. Cruz, who is married to actor Javier Bardem, gave birth to Luna in 2013. Now that she has a daughter, this sexism feels more absurd.

And, for what it's worth, Cruz loves her age. She told Paltrow that she doesn't long for her twenties at all.

Said Cruz, "I wouldn’t for a second change the way I feel now for the way I felt in my twenties. How I see the world, how I look at acting — everything has changed."